“Faced with an imminent shut-down of millions of DVRs(the precise number has never been disclosed), we believeDish will be faced with a gun-to-the-head settlement requirement,”Sanford Bernstein senior analyst Craig Moffett wrotein a research note.

Dish would be forced to pay a licensing fee of $1.75 to $3per DVR per month in a settlement with TiVo, analysts haveestimated.

Dish, however, said it plans to appeal that part of the rulingto the U.S. Supreme Court. The satellite operator said itwill upgrade affected DVRs “as quickly as possible” to versionswith non-infringing software if it cannot obtain a stay.

TiVo shares soared after the decision was announced April20, closing up 28% for the day to $10.84 per share. Dish’s stockdropped 1.7%, to $23.58 per share, last Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the appeals court sided with Dish on aseparate issue, which could lower the amount of damagesthe company must pay TiVo.

The ruling vacated a federal district court’s finding of contemptof the infringement provision of the permanent injunction,sending that portion back to the court to determinewhether a newly accused product — Dish’s updated DVR,with software it said did not infringe the TiVo Time Warp patent— was so different from the product previously found toinfringe that it raises “a fair ground of doubt as to the wrongfulnessof the defendant’s conduct.”

Now the question is how long Judge David Folsom of the U.SDistrict Court for the Eastern District of Texas will give Dishto comply with the disablement order, and whether he willgrant Dish’s request for a stay pending its Supreme Court appeal.“He could give Dish thirty days, or sixty days … or one,”Moffett wrote.

TiVo originally sued EchoStar Communications in January2004. After the satellite operator was found to have violatedthe TiVo “Time Warp” patent, Folsom in August 2006 orderedDish to disable all infringing DVRs. After Dish/EchoStar didnot comply, the court awarded TiVo a total of about $300 millionin additional damages and sanctions.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the$300 million award in March 2010. Last week, the court upheldadditional sanctions of $90 million but vacated $110 millionrelated to the contempt sanction for infringement.

In a statement, TiVo said: “We look forward to the permanentinjunction against EchoStar and Dish Network finally being enforced with respect to the DVRs they mustnow disable. This ruling also paves the way for TiVo to receivesubstantial damages and contempt sanctions regardingthe DVRs that EchoStar and Dish Network failedto disable.”

Separately, TiVo is also inlitigation with Motorola Mobility,AT&T, Verizon and Microsoft.The DVR companylast month issued a $150 milliondebt offering, in part tofund intellectual-propertylitigation. TiVo had $7.6million in litigation expensesfor its fiscal quarterended Jan. 31, and thecompany said it expectslegal costs “will significantlyincrease” in the current quarter.